How to Boil Water – Demystified

Perfect Picnic Potato-Vegetable Salad

Here is one that is perfect for 4th of July parties. It is a change on a recipe I got from The Splendid Table. Lynne Rosetto Kasper, the host of the show, emails out recipes once a week for weekday cooking. If you don’t subscribe, I highly recommend it. In last week’s email was the following recipe for “Farmers’ Market Salad with Buttermilk Chive Dressing”. It was fantastic, but I made a few changes to the salad part of it. If you omit the eggs, you can bring this to a picnic or BBQ and only have to keep the dressing chilled/out of the sun/omitted to make it a safe salad. The dressing is perfect as is, so I recommend clicking on the link above and making it. (And it is non-fat!)

Since this version doesn’t have lettuce in it, and you don’t dress the salad until it hits your plate, it is a good one for making after a trip to the farmers’ market or grocery store, you can prep it all and then keep it in the fridge for veggies all week. It is super healthy and fresh tasting and you’ll be anxious to try up new veggies in it as the season progresses.

You will notice the amounts are not too precise. It is a salad after all, so adjust things to fit your tastes and what looks good at the market. I’m thinking as the season progresses, you can just keep adding more veggies to the mix.

Use scoopy things like this, or thongs, a sieve or anything else that will accomplish the same goal of veggies out of hot water.

*To boil eggs, put them in a small pan, cover with 1” cold water. Bring to a boil, then cover and set aside for 15-17 min. Remove the eggs from the pan and put into a bowl of ice water to cool them down so they are easier to peel.

Fill a large saucepan with water and a little salt. Bring to a boil. Make an ice bath – a bowl mostly full of ice and some water. Put a clean kitchen towel down next to it.

Boil carrots for 3 min. Scoop out the carrots with anything heat-safe that will drain the water out. I have a couple of scoopy things that do this job well. See picture. Put the carrots into the ice bath, which stops the carrots from cooking any further so they’ll have a nice crunch still. When the carrots are cool, take them out of the ice bath and put on the towel to dry.

Meanwhile, bring the water back to a boil. Repeat this process with the peas (about 1-2 min) and green beans (2-3 min). Keep adding more ice and cold water as needed and as the veggies are dried out a little, add them to a big salad bowl.

The potatoes should go into boiling water, but then turn down to a vigorous simmer (not a boil, not really a simmer) for 10-15 min, until they are cooked. Drain them and then put in the ice bath. I use a colander for the potatoes and then let them dry out a little bit in the colander.

Add in the radishes, peppers and tomatoes into the salad bowl. Mix carefully. Add in the potatoes and mix carefully. Shell the eggs and slice length-wise and decorate the top of the salad. Serve with Buttermilk-Chive Dressing.